Laleh Bakhtiar was born Mary Nell Bakhtiar in New York to an American mother and an Iranian father. She was raised Catholic in Washington DC and Los Angeles but at the age of 24, she moved to Iran with her Iranian husband and their three children, where she began to study Islam. Her teacher, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, helped her to study Quranic Arabic, before she converted to Islam in 1964 and changed her name to Laleh. In 1988, she moved back to the US continuing her work as an author and a certified counselor. Her writings and translations all focused on Islam, many dealing with Sufism. Her translation of the Quran, which received a great deal of criticism, was the first translation of the Quran into English by an American woman. Her translated work was done from a female perspective and sought to offer alternative meanings for Arabic words that many scholars have had to guess on because of the antiquity of the language. Laleh’s translation received criticism from a number of scholars who claimed her reputation as an editor did not qualify her to be a scholar. Others stated that her three years of Classical Arabic were not enough to complete the translation. She responded to the criticism saying “it’s there because I am a woman”. Laleh held a degree in history from Chatham College, and an MA in counseling psychology and a PhD in educational foundations. From 2007 until the time of her death in October 2020, she lived in Chicago and was a scholar in residence at Kazi Publications.